Sunday, June 07, 2009

Wagger Wagga Foggy Shocker

I’m writing to you this week in part to try and avoid a 5pm snooze, so excuse any lethargy in the vocabulary and grammar in this one. I think picking over a platter of smoked meats, cheeses and dips during a long lunch at Poacher’s Pantry has caught up with me. That and the rest of the week, which though nowhere near as tasty saw me take in some more of regional NSW and a whistle stop fly by work trip to Sydney.

Midweek, I took the road to Gundagai, which has lots of songs about it apparently, no doubt most of which revolve around a dog on a tucker box. In fact the sign for Gundagai says something along the lines of “You’ve sung the song, now visit the place.” I remain oblivious though if I was to dust off the Best of Australia CD I purchased for five dollars in a bargain bin it could make more sense. Drizzly and rainy, why oh why, has bushman Neil come to Gundagai. Dog on a Tucker Box, Subway in trucker stops, Cockatoo roo poo, wah ma wah waaaaah coolibah tree.

Along the road from Gundagai, is Wagga Wagga, or if that in itself is too ridiculous a place name to handle, just plain and simple Wagga. It’s claim to fame is the largest inland city in NSW, though if you are expecting a high rise metropolis, you’ll be disappointed. It’s a typical country hub, a few colonial era buildings mixing it with strips of fast food joints, a glitzy RSL, simple but pleasant parks and gardens and the broad brown meanderings of the Murrumbidgee River.



On Thursday morning, I was flying from Wagga to Sydney, where I had multiple pleasures of joining a Catholic Social Club for $5.50, being told I made something really boring really fun and mixing it with the youngsters (it was, like, so gay). See last week’s entry for a far more interesting account of Sydney.

And so back to Canberra, where it is now officially winter, and like clockwork the rains have arrived and it’s generally been dull and cool. It sure was murky on Saturday morning, but the sun was there above 800 metres, emerging out of the low cloud and fog at Mount Ainslie and providing some good ultraviolet light on the skin.


And as I sit here full and thirsty, I wonder how much of this was not fog but smoke blowing in from the meat smoking shed at Poacher’s Pantry.


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